Gyms, Alcohol, and Marriage - Ryan's Story - Strength 2 Overcome Podcast

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Leave your ego at the door and get ready to be
raw.
This is Strength to Overcome,where real men find their
strength in weakness.
Hi guys, welcome back to theStrength to Overcome podcast.
I'm your co-host Ryan here withmy man Matt, and we're back with
you again for this Friday'sepisode.

(00:22):
Matt, great to have you here,brother.

SPEAKER_00 (00:24):
Yeah, absolutely, mate.
I'm absolutely pumped.
I've got a few things to shareabout this morning's routine and
just great to be here.
So

SPEAKER_01 (00:31):
super pumped.
If anyone out there is lookingto get a hold of us, there's a
couple different ways.
You can always direct message uson Instagram at strength to
overcome.
Remember, that's a two in there,the number two.
Or you can email usinfo.strengthtoovercome at
gmail.com.
We're not gurus.
We're not therapists by anymeans, but we are two guys who

(00:52):
have been through a lot andyou're going to hear about some
of those struggles again today,but shoot us a message if you
feel like you need someone tochat.
Again, it'sinfo.strengthtoovercome at
gmail.com.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05):
Yeah, that's great stuff, mate, and it's funny
because this morning I went formy long walk with this brace
still on, you know, a lot ofstiffness when I wake up in the
morning and, you know, stillbattling some stuff in the chest
region, so excuse the coughing,but You know, I went for this
walk, and just before I gothome, I ran into the neighbor
that was sharing his testimony,and I'm just blown away how, you

(01:29):
know, I feel like the Almightyjust keeps connecting me with
people to just nudge me along inthis path, and...
know validate that what we'redoing here is is meant to be and
i do believe that we're going tobe uh blessed to be able to make
this what we do and uh so i gotback i i did my grounding and uh
did some breath work as wellwhich just always gives me that

(01:51):
energy and that reset for theday even though it's early i
feel like without that i justdon't have the reins of my day
moving forward so for those ofyou out there that don't have a
routine of something like thatwhere you're setting your side
inside some time for justyourself i really encourage you
to who find something.
There's a lot of options outthere.
I found something that works forme, but you've really got to
have somewhere in your day whereyou can just pull away from the

(02:13):
world and just find that resetmorning, noon or night.
It doesn't matter, but it'sreally important.
And a lot of the experts outthere are going to kind of walk
you down their version of it andthey're fine.
So find something that works foryou because moving forward,
you're going to really need it.
And it's been a real blessing tome.
I told you I've been

SPEAKER_01 (02:30):
kind of starting my days with some movement.
I kind of hop out of bed and getmy shoes on and do a five to 10
minute workout right in myliving room while I'm taking
care of the dogs, letting thedogs out.
And, you know, just that routineof getting up, getting moving,
drinking a full glass of water,making a protein smoothie.
It kind of sets the tone thatthat first 20 minutes, first 30

(02:53):
minutes of my morning, havingthat routine similar each time
and doing things for my body formovement has really helped.
really started to move me in theright direction or at least make
me feel a little bit better eachstarting each day so that's cool

SPEAKER_00 (03:07):
yeah absolutely

SPEAKER_01 (03:08):
mate and

SPEAKER_00 (03:09):
uh you know for those of you that have been
following this you know ryan andi've connected again after you
know 12 or 13 years of uh youknow completely different
journeys and uh you know i wasshocked to hear some of the
things that he shared you knowin previous episodes and
obviously we did get togetheryou know now that he's moved
into the florida state region wecan get together with a you not

(03:31):
too long a drive.
And so during that timetogether, we were able to share
a few more things there thatwe're going to dig in on.
And I just want to shout out tomy man, Ryan, because I'm
already noticing a change sincethat first reconnection.
I'm seeing a different glint inthe eye and a little excitement
kicking in.
So just keep on plugging away,brother.
I know that we're going to digin on some of what's going on
with you today.

(03:51):
And I just want to encourage youbecause I'm seeing such a great
change and I'm really excited tosee where this goes for you.
So Yeah, I appreciate it.
Appreciate it.
So walk me through a little bit.
I've obviously shared last weeka lot of what happened since
around that time you and I wererunning together.

(04:14):
We had a great couple of yearstogether in the gym scene, a lot
of golf and some fun storiesthere.
You shared one the other day, Ithink you should share again,
about my opening nine there andhow that played out.
It's kind of funny, but theseare the things that we were
doing.
And so I sort of shared, youknow, what happened after that
in my journey to just giveeverybody out there that doesn't

(04:36):
know, you know, a backstory.
And so I'd like to hear yourbackstory and you can go back to
the day you were born if youremember it, but I just want to
hear, you know, from your mouth,what's on your heart and what
are you going through?
What else is there that we, youknow, can put out there that's
going to help all the guys?

SPEAKER_01 (04:52):
Well, you know, I think it's interesting that I'm
sitting here wearing a Roguet-shirt 10 years later because
that's really where I want to goback to is 2014.
I guess that's 11 years at thispoint since we're sitting in
2025.
But, you know, my life reallytook a shift in that 2014 time
range.
And interestingly, I know youwere all over the world at that,

(05:15):
you know, starting at that pointand shortly thereafter.
Most of my story, actually allof my story stayed in Roanoke.
For the next 11 years.
So, you know, 2014 was a yearwhere I found CrossFit.
You know, and that was, youknow, I was working out at
Gold's Gym.
They had a CrossFit affiliateinside the Gold's Gym there.
And I started trainingone-on-one with one of the

(05:38):
coaches.
And he started showing me thesemovements and different lifts
with the barbell and other, youknow, body weight, gymnastic
style movements.
And, you know, the way my brainworked, I was just enthralled.
I couldn't get enough of it.
I was already a golf, golf nerd.
I studied the golf swing,practiced the golf swing for

(05:59):
years and years and years.
I had already been into fitnessbecause I had been training with
you at 180 years prior.
And the challenge of CrossFitreally grabbed hold of me in
2014 when I started working outthere and I got I got just
sucked in.
You know, I started buying theT-shirts, the rogue gear.

(06:22):
You know, they were the bigmanufacturer of barbells and
lifting belts and shorts andshirts and socks and jump ropes.
And I started just getting allthe gear.
I started working out twice aday and.
you know, just really divinginto my fitness.
And at the same time, mynutrition, I started tracking my

(06:43):
macros.
Again, I tracked every macrothat went into my body starting
at that point.
And it was really a time ofphysical flourishing for me, if
you will.
Since the time that we had spenttogether years prior, I really
ended up getting into the bestshape of my life over the next
two or three years.

(07:04):
And it got to a point where itwas my life.
I identified as a CrossFitter, afitness trainer.
I got my level one certificate.
from CrossFit and startedcoaching classes at the Gold's
Gym there.
And all the while, I was stillin the golf industry.
I was a PGA professional.

(07:25):
And so I was kind of livingthose two realities or those two
lives where I would work as agolf pro from Tuesday through
Sunday.
And then Monday, I would coachclasses.
I started training people,personal training folks during
the day.
And...

(07:45):
The passion for golf started todecrease while the passion for
fitness increased.
And so, you know, come 2015, Ihad the opportunity to actually
increase my training, increasemy coaching and clientele at
Gold's.
And I sat down with the owner ofthe Gold's gym and we actually
mapped out a plan for me to be afull-time coach.

(08:08):
trainer and a coach there and itwas exciting.
It was something that reallyexcited me and got me looking
toward the future.
I was kind of burned out fromthe golf world and we ended up
deciding to take the leap and Iput in my notice at the golf
course.
It was, I think, June of 2015where I sat down with my boss

(08:30):
there and said, hey, I've gotthis opportunity to go be a You
know, at the time it was goingto be called director of
training at Gold's Gym.
And it was a nice title.
But, you know, really, I was acoach and a personal trainer.
But, you know, so I finished outthe month.
I think I gave, you know, arounda three or four week notice at
Gold's and excuse me, at thegolf course.

(08:51):
And, you know, transition intocoaching.
six or seven or eight classes atGold's and then trying to build
a book of training clients inthe summer of 2015.
And that was really mytransition point into the
fitness world.
And the money was not as good.
As you know, trainers aren'tmaking millions of dollars.

(09:15):
And at that point, I didn'tcare.
I had some happiness.
I had passion.
And I was just...
Waking up early, training folks,working out myself, taking a nap
in the middle of the day, comingback in the afternoon, doing it
all over again at night, workingout again in the evening.
And it was just beautiful.
It was...

(09:36):
I probably look back on it asone of my happier times.
I felt like I had a true passionand a true roadmap.
And part of that was because ofCrossFit in that it gave you
such measurable metrics to hit.
You had all the lifts.
You had all the benchmarkworkouts.
You had different skills tolearn.
You could literally practicethem for hours and hours on end.

(10:00):
So that was a pretty cool timefor me.
And it's one that...
Like I said, I look back on now,and it was a huge leap, and I
took a lot of glances and looksfor it in the golf world.
Folks were looking at mesideways like, you're leaving
this golf professional job to bea personal trainer?

SPEAKER_00 (10:19):
And I was like, yeah.
Let me ask there, because I doknow that at the time you and I
were getting it done at 180, didyou not own the pro shop at your
club as well?

SPEAKER_01 (10:33):
Yeah.
So I owned the, owned the proshop at the golf course.
So that was almost like my firstforay into a small business.
I had to manage the books andthe inventory and the buying and
selling and all that.
And so on top of the salary, youknow, PGA professional salary, I
was giving lessons and then Ihad the pro shop as well.
So that complicated things onthe exit because the golf course

(10:57):
had to buy me back out of thegolf shop.
Um, Thankfully, I worked withsome great people there at the
golf course that really held uptheir word because I essentially
left about$30,000 of inventorysitting in there that was mine,
and I left to go work at Gold'sGym.

(11:18):
It's not like we could just sellit overnight.
And so they've kind of paid meback as they sold off the
merchandise over the next, I'llsay, six, eight, 12 months.
And, you know, thankfully thatall worked out smoothly and the
transition kind of completelysolidified itself.

SPEAKER_00 (11:38):
Did you find...
At that time, were you lookingback or were you just so dialed
in to the excitement of whatyou're doing that you just said,
you know what, to hell with thepro shop, the course, the
clients at the time?
I'm sure you had clients thatyou had to kind of hand off to
the next pro.
I mean, was this a moment of youkind of staggering into it or
did you just kind of be like,you know, I'm done.

(12:00):
This is everything I need andjust sort of left it all behind?
I mean, were you still playingat the time?

SPEAKER_01 (12:07):
I kind of hung the clubs up.
I was so, like I said,enthralled is the word in
fitness that it became my new,I'll even call it a coping
mechanism.
It was a way for me to turn offthe noise, turn off any sort of
distractions or pain or other,let's just say trauma in my life

(12:29):
is to work out.
And it became a thing where youknow, when you're in the middle
of a 20 minute AMRAP or a, or a,you know, 30 minute workout or a
CrossFit class, you're not ableto think about your problems.
And so I was just, I was so fardown that path.
And I even, I gathered some ofthe folks that were at the golf

(12:52):
course and started training themin the gym.
I remember some folks that I,you know, went from giving golf
lessons to now I was personaltraining and, and, and, and
doing that.
But, uh, My my most memorabletraining session was, you know,
when I was first trying to getmy book of clients built up, I
was I just had to say yes toeverything.

(13:13):
You know, I couldn't really pickand choose.
And there was a lady that cameto Gold's gym and she needed to
train at 430 a.m.
And so of course I was like, andnone of the other trainers would
do it.
They all said, no, I need tosleep.
And I said, yes.
And so I trained her, I thinkone time it was like a Monday at
4 30 AM and we had a greatsession.
She was like, oh, this is great.

(13:34):
Let's do this Monday, Wednesday,Friday.
And I'm like, oh my God.
And of, and of course I saidyes.
And so all of a sudden I'm,training this lady Monday,
Wednesday, Friday at 4.30 a.m.
Thankfully, I picked up the 5.30class to back up to it.
So I kind of created a block formyself.

(13:56):
So I had a week where I wasgetting up at 3.45 a.m.
And I'd do that.
I would train her 4.30.
I would coach class at 5.30.
Then I would work out.
I'd get my own workout in at6.30.
And then I might have some stuffat 8 or 9 with some personal
training clients.

(14:16):
And then I would go home and Iwould sleep from like 11 to...
let's just say two and then comeback in the evening, have some
clients coach a couple ofclasses, work out myself again
at 6 30 PM.
And that was a day.
And I was going to sleep justhappy as a clam.
You know, all my stressors weregone.
I was working out, you know, aswe know, there's a lot of mental

(14:39):
and emotional benefits toexercising.
I was just exhausted, but I was,I was happy.
I was content.
And, um, We really started tobuild the CrossFit program there
to a point.
It was me and the other guy thathad kind of started the program
there.
And we built this followingbehind us.
And it was really behind him atthe time because he was doing

(15:00):
the programming.
He was the technical affiliateowner there at the Gold's Gym.
He was the head coach.
But he and I started talkingabout the possibility and the
idea of starting our own gym andgoing off on our own.
And so we ended up doing thatthe spring of 2016, we pulled

(15:23):
our resources together and, youknow, we found a space, we found
a location that we felt would becentral and accessible.
And, you know, in April of 2016,we both walked into Gold's gym
and handed our resignationletters in, um, to the to the to
the owner of Gold's Gym and youknow they were I think they were

(15:46):
a little bit shocked but theyalso kind of understood and they
were also kind of mad and Ithink there were just a lot of
emotions there because theydidn't know what was going on
and you know little did theyknow we had the keys already to
the building and you know we hadthe the big rogue order placed
for all the equipment and wewere you know we were down the

(16:07):
path at this point and so

SPEAKER_00 (16:09):
Well, that's funny that you'd say that because your
timeline is interesting.
You said you started getting outof the golf sort of scene in the
summer of 15, which is, I lookback on that period and I'm
still trying to figure out whywe weren't connected at some
level, but you were obviouslyknee deep in changing careers
and I was knee deep in goingthrough it.
I was going through, which Italked about in the last

(16:30):
episode.
And then it's almost like theApril of 16, you kind of walked
in, handed in your resignationand started the And it was April
of 16 that I left the country.

SPEAKER_01 (16:43):
Yeah, you guys left for Mexico, right?

SPEAKER_00 (16:45):
That was it.
Yeah.
And so it's interesting to hearthat that really kind of put the
nail in the coffin because I waslike, I'm out of here.
I'm not even going to be, youknow, contactable.
And we weren't, right?
We were virtually, you know.
off the grid.
And you were obviously knee deepin your thing.
So that would kind of explainwhy really definitely by 16, you

(17:07):
know, 15, 16, that was like thenail in our connection coffin,
right?
We were definitely not thinkingabout anything other than what
we were right in the midst of.

SPEAKER_01 (17:17):
Yeah, yeah, we were in it because we had, you know,
we had to open this facility andget this thing rolling.
I remember our opening day wasMay 2nd of 2016.
And so we had, you know, acouple week window to kind of
gather ourselves.
And, you know, luckily we werevery fortunate that we had a big

(17:37):
following from Gold's.
And, you know, we had, you know,probably 40 or 50 people.
members follow us, you know,and, you know, cancel, cancel
their gold contracts and, and,um, and follow us to CrossFit
Unify, which is the gym westarted.
And so we opened, you know, wecould have opened with zero and

(17:58):
a lot of gyms go through thatreality and have to build their
way up.
But we were very fortunate thatwe had built ourselves up to a
point where we had that manypeople that trusted in us from
the beginning.
And I remember we hit, we hit ahundred members fairly early.
That was our big opening pushwas let's get to a hundred
members.
And I think we offered alifetime deal, you know,
lifetime monthly membership forthe first hundred that signed up

(18:22):
and we got there within thefirst two or three weeks of
being open in may um so

SPEAKER_00 (18:29):
we handle that uh transition because i know as a
gym owner myself and being inthat business for 20 years and
having to hire and fire with youknow some you know bigger gyms
that i was uh you knowmanagement with you know when
you lose a trainer of yourmagnitude And a lot of people go
with you.
I kind of look at that from theother side in management and go,
are you kidding me?

(18:50):
Like, you just walked out withall my business.
How did you guys handle thattransition?
Because, you know, I know you,you know, your character is not
like that.
So how did you guys handle thatswitch over?
Because I know that wouldn'thave sat right with you had you
not done it carefully.

SPEAKER_01 (19:05):
Yeah, it was definitely a tricky one because,
you know, Luckily, my businesspartner, the guy that started it
all with me, he was technicallythe affiliate owner of the
affiliate that was within Gold.
So it's not like we took thatfrom them and ran with it.

(19:28):
He actually technically ownedthe affiliate.
So that was good.
We did decide to not use thatname and start a new one.
But yeah, there were a lot ofpeople there that did stay at
Gold.
And I think the owner of theGold's Gym at the time, I think
he saw the writing on the walland I think he helped us out.

(19:50):
He let a lot of the members outof their contracts, which I
don't think technically heneeded to do.
No.
But I think he just didn't wantto make it any messier than it
needed to be.
And he let a lot of them leavewhen he could have held them on
to their contracts.
And, you know, it was tough forus because, you know, we weren't
in the business of houndingeverybody and saying, hey, you

(20:13):
need to come with us.
You need to do this.
You need to do that.
We weren't going to chasepeople.
But you got to understand thetype of energy we had going in
that movement and that journey.

UNKNOWN (20:23):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (20:24):
It was almost like they were attached to us.
They were like our ride or diesat this moment.
And I throw myself in that boatand it was mostly him that had
built this following.
They were all on board with hisprogramming and the way he
programmed workouts and hisjourney.
I was kind of the business headbehind it.
I kind of put all the contractsand the LLC and the lease

(20:47):
together.
And I was kind of the personthat tied up those buttons.
And I'd also coached a bunch atthis point to where I was not
the head coach, but I was kindof the right-hand man of him at
this point.
So we were very fortunate thatthat worked out at that time to
get us situated and get usrolling there at the first gym.

SPEAKER_00 (21:09):
Yeah, for sure.
I know that I had a similartransition when I started my own
business, 180, as we talkedabout it a bit.
And when you're that intimate,you know, on a three or four
times a week kind of situationwith clients and your
programming and results and, youknow, years of history kind of
my situation, I understand thatwhen you move and you do
something new, they just followyou.

(21:32):
And, you know, there's adelicate dance there where, If
you go out of your way tomanipulate their decisions and
such, I think that there's thatbaggage you'll carry with you.
But when you kind of say,listen, I'm going to be leaving
here and I'm going to be overhere.
If they follow you, that's atestament to what you guys are
doing.
And I've seen that for 20 yearsin this business.
So it's interesting that Gold'sdidn't go out of their way to

(21:53):
make sure you guys werecomfortable and happy where you
were at to try and keep youbefore.
You said the writing was on thewall, but they didn't really do
a lot to try and maybe hold youguys there and come up with
something to keep you and theirmembers there.

SPEAKER_02 (22:06):
Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 (22:06):
yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (22:07):
So, you know, we rolled with that for about a
year and things were goingreally well.
And we had this vision ofcreating an empire, you know,
creating a fitness empire withmultiple locations.
And, you know, at the time, oneof the big meccas was Brickhouse
CrossFit.
They were the first and originalCrossFit gym in Roanoke downtown

(22:28):
there.
And Talk about divineintervention or the almighty or
whatever you will, but he and Ihad discussed this at one point,
and sure enough, the owners ofBrick House, Jay and Amanda,
reached out to us out of theblue.
This was early 2017.
for a sit down meeting and theycame to us and they said, you

(22:50):
know, we're ready to get out ofthings.
We're ready to move on.
What would you guys, how wouldyou guys feel about taking over
brick house?
Now they presented it as ustaking over brick house and look
like absorbing our gym intobrick house and making one big
movement.
But we kind of looked at it theother way.
I don't know.
In hindsight, we, probably it'stough to say in hindsight, we

(23:12):
could have done that, but welooked at it as let's take over
this new operation and run bothfacilities at the same time.
And so we did, we ended upbuying them out of brick house
and we operated brick house,CrossFit and CrossFit unify
concurrently at the same time.
So now you can imagine there'stwo of us and we're running all
over town.
Cause you know, the firstlocation was over on off Peter's

(23:35):
Creek road.
The other location is downtown.
And so he and I are justfreaking, Back and forth, you
know, two ships passing, goingall over the place, trying to,
you know, spending half our timeat one gym, half our time at
another, trying to figure out,do we merge them?
Do we keep the culture separate?
How do we handle this?
How do we handle that?
And it was a tough transition.

(23:56):
It just we didn't know a lotabout business at the time.
We didn't have a lot of wedidn't have any.
any experience running multiplebusinesses or how do you combine
cultures?
How do you bleed two culturestogether?
How do you handle the staff attwo different locations?
And so it ended up coming to apoint where it felt like we were
each giving half of ourselves toeach gym.

(24:19):
And so you can imagine givinghalf of yourself to 180 if you
were there.
It's not going to go over well.
You got to be all in.
You got to give 100%.
And it got to a point, like Isaid, where we just weren't
weren't really giving our wholeselves to either gym.
And so, you know, we had a toughconversation.
We had to really, really talkabout, you know, what are we

(24:40):
going to do with this and howare we going to handle it for
the future?
And we decided to basicallybreak up.
It was almost like arelationship where we said, hey,
let's split up, let's break upand go our separate ways.
And it just happened to workout.
in that we had two gyms to kindof split with.
And, you know, he'd take onegym, I'd take the other.
And he was nice enough to giveme the, give me the option.

(25:02):
And I chose to take Brickhouseand he kept Unify.
And, you know, it's, it justworked out great because we
didn't really have to splitassets.
We didn't have to split money.
It was, it was, uh, it was like,I'm just going to stay at this
gym.
You stay at that gym and, youknow, we'll sign a couple of
papers and be done with it.
And it was super simple in thatterms.
Um, we did have some folks thatwere crossover members at both

(25:23):
gyms.
And so we had to kind of handlethat.
I think most of them ended upstaying with him at Unify, but,
uh, overall it was, it was apretty, a pretty nice divorce
since we had both gyms to, tofall back on.
And so I stayed at Brick Houseand ran that.
And that took us into the summerof 2018 is when that happened.

(25:44):
So all of a sudden, 2018, youknow, July 2018, I'm on my own.
You know, I'm a gym owner andI've got one gym, Brick House.
He's got one gym, Unify.
And it was almost like a newjourney started from that point
forward because I no longer hadhim to fall back on and he no
longer had me.

SPEAKER_00 (26:04):
Did you find that, you know, there's a pattern and
I've got a very similar pattern,you know, one of my opening
videos that I did for this was,you know, some of you know me as
a carpenter, some of you know meas a, you know, and I go down
this long list and I actuallyleft out a couple, but I look at
my story, I look at yours and acouple of people that I know and
it seems like there's thispattern of always needing
something to dig into.

(26:26):
Do you find that you look backon yours now and see that you
were using these as copingmechanisms for the depression
that you've talked about in thepast?

SPEAKER_01 (26:35):
Yeah, I mean, definitely.
I think I was like I callmyself.
I was on fire at the time.
You know, I was just and I thinkin a way it is a coping
mechanism, but it also is apurpose.
And, you know, you've got adriven purpose to to create and
build something.
And that's a lot of what I'vebeen lacking over the last year
since I sold the gym is thatthat purpose and that that drive

(26:59):
or even that coping mechanism,if you want to call it that of,
you know, what what do I have todo?
But there was never that.
that feeling back then becauseit was waking up every day with,
I've got to do this, I've got todo that.
I've got this purpose to build.
I've got these people that arecounting on me each day.
People do know me as a lot ofdifferent things, whether it's a

(27:22):
golf pro or a fitness trainer ora coach or a gym owner or
whatever it is.
It's interesting.
I think like we were talking theother day, we create identities
around that.
around that thing.
And so when that identity istaken away or removed, you know,
what do you fall back on?

SPEAKER_00 (27:41):
So walk me through from 18, you've taken over this
gym and even when you were in,you know, to visit and catch up,
I know we specifically didn'ttalk about this because I wanted
it to be live.
What happened from 18 to now?
Like I actually have absolutelyno idea what transpired in those
six, seven years.

SPEAKER_01 (28:02):
Yeah, I mean, so in 18, I really started to dig into
some personal developmentthings.
I had a mentor at the time whowas really feeding me a bunch of
books and had me on a greatroutine of gratitude and morning
routine and different things.
And so I ended up getting reallydialed in personally during that
2018 time period.
And just like really a lot ofgrowth.

(28:24):
And I was in a really good spot.
I was single at the time.
And, you know, at 18, I think itwas that October, November of
2018 is when I ended up gettinginto a relationship and it ended
up being a woman who was atUnify.
She was at the old gym where Ihad left.

(28:47):
So I had known her as a clientpreviously and we reconnected in
that November of 2018 and weended up starting up a
relationship and Of course, itdidn't take long.
She came over to Brick House andstarted working out at my gym.
And, you know, I had hired agreat staff.
I had inherited a great staff,but they weren't mine.

(29:10):
And that ended up being a bigissue down the road is, you
know, when we bought BrickHouse, we inherited the staff
and they weren't really Ryan'speople.
And what I mean by that is theyweren't They weren't chosen by
me.
I didn't hire them.
I didn't groom them to be thecoaches that they were.
They had developed under someoneelse and under a whole different
culture, you know, the priorBrickhouse.

(29:33):
And so I did hire a guy whoended up being a really great
coach for us in that summer of2018.
And I had him on board with therest of the staff.
I had my new relationship going.
So things were looking prettygood into 2019.
We had probably 165, 170 membersat one point at Brickhouse.

(29:56):
So we had grown to a point wherethings were really good.
But I also had gotten into amentorship company that was
working with me and we weremaking a lot of changes.
We were trying to kind of pickand choose different areas to
improve on in the business andsystematically improve.
And so I started to make a lotof changes that a lot of folks

(30:19):
took issue with.
I remember the one thing Iimplemented that started the
domino effect of blowing thingsup was I took away staff
discounts or couples.
What would it be?
Members spouse discounts wherewe were letting spouses of
coaches work out for free at thegym.
OK, and I took that away.
And I remember, you know, I hadto send out the message, the

(30:42):
email that your spouse, yourwife, your husband's going to
have to pay for a gym membershipfrom this point forward.
And as you can imagine, thatprobably didn't go over too
well.
And.
Yeah, it was just this period.
It wasn't that I was...
And I got labeled as greedy, asmoney hungry, and called a lot
of things for moves like this.
But it wasn't that.

(31:02):
It was more that I was trying tofollow the guidance of my
mentorship company.
I was trying to systematize thebusiness for the future and
build systems that would workand not drown us at the same
time.
And I'll never forget thissituation because it was...
That coach that I had hired, whowas kind of a full-time coach

(31:23):
for us at one point, based onthat move, he was going to leave
the gym.
His wife wasn't going to haveher free membership anymore.
I had caught wind that he wasgoing to leave the gym and go
coach somewhere else.
It was a tough situation becausehe lived right down the street.
He walked to work every day.
It was just a perfect situation.
It really hit me hard that hewas looking to leave because of

(31:44):
this move.
What transpired was probablywhat I'll call one of the bigger
mistakes I've ever made in thegym space, in the business, in
that I had a sit down meetingwith this coach and he
essentially was ready to give mehis two week notice because he
told me he was thinking aboutleaving.

(32:05):
And instead of letting him givehis two week notice and leave on
his terms, I pulled the plugimmediately.
and said, no, let's just end ittoday.
Let's just make today your lastday.
And I was doing that out of someadvice that I had gotten from my
mentor at the time.
And to be honest, he didn't havethe full picture, the full story

(32:25):
to give that advice, but I kindof took it and ran with it.
I said, let's get it.
The idea was, let's go ahead andget him out of here so we can
move on and hire someone else.
And it doesn't drag on for himfor two weeks, telling everybody
he's leaving type of deal.
Well, it turned out to be kindof a Because as you can imagine,
it ruffled not only hisfeathers, but a lot of the other

(32:49):
coaches feathers, a lot of themembers feathers.
So and I did I wrote him a checkfor that week.
You know, it's not like I said,get out.
You know, I wrote him a checkfor all the classes and the
activities he was going to beperforming that week.
But I didn't let him leave onhis terms and didn't let him.
finish out that two week periodthat would have, you know, he

(33:10):
would have preferred.
And so the fallout from thatended up being quite
significant, you know, over thenext, let's, this was November
of 2019, Matt.
So over the next, let's saythree months, because we know
what's upcoming, you know, into2020, but over the next three
months, I lost probably five, 75to 80% of my coaches and about,

(33:39):
let's just say a third, probably55 or 60 members.

SPEAKER_00 (33:43):
That's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 (33:44):
That's a lot.
That's a

SPEAKER_00 (33:45):
huge hit.
At that point that those, thosestats represent your margin.

SPEAKER_01 (33:50):
Yeah.
And you know, so that's, that'swhy, you know, if I could go
back and change it, I would havedone something different.
It was obviously not the rightplay because it ruffled a lot of
feathers.
It painted me as a villain inthat story.
And a lot of people didn'tunderstand why I did it.
And, you know, we lost a lot.
The gym really struggled becauseof that.
And, you know, we were kind ofreeling.

(34:13):
At this point, our relationshiphad grown to a point where we
had actually gotten engaged thatprevious summer.
Okay, so I was engaged at thispoint in 2019.
She had started coaching at thegym.
So we had brought her in to apoint where she was coaching.
We were engaged.
We were a team.
So I had that to fall back on.

(34:33):
I had, you know, I had hersupport and I had another coach
that stuck with me through thetime.
But there was a point therewhere it literally was the three
of us, me, my fiance and oneother coach were all that was
left.
When three months prior, I hadhad a staff of 10 coaches.

SPEAKER_00 (34:51):
Wow.

SPEAKER_01 (34:52):
70 members.

UNKNOWN (34:54):
Wow.

SPEAKER_01 (34:54):
And and things turned and, you know, we were
starting to right the ship alittle bit.
Things were starting to turnaround.
We were getting some momentum inthe right direction.
But this was March 2020.
Yeah.
And so COVID hits and all of asudden we had to shut the gym
down, like literally had to lockthe doors and we were told to
stay home.
And so it ended up being a messat that point.

(35:17):
It was just a complete mess.

SPEAKER_00 (35:19):
Well, I remember the exact same timeline I had.
If anyone listens to mytestimony, you'll find that I
actually left California at theend of February and got here
with an eight-week-old baby andwent to start my transition from
Crunch out there to the Crunchfranchise out here.
And we got out here, and twoweeks after we got here, same

(35:40):
thing.
Front door is locked.
And there's this holy crapmoment that, okay, what the hell
am I meant to do now?
This is what I do.
So you're in the same boat.
Unbeknownst to me, you and I areactually in the same situation
where all hell is about to breakloose.
So walk me through what happenedbecause now you're in 2020
March, and now I'm really kindof seeing the parallel here.

SPEAKER_01 (36:03):
Luckily, we had that mentorship company at the time,
and they had already dealt withthis because they've got gyms
all over the world.
China had already shut down, sothey had already dealt with
this.
So they had a game plan ready toroll out.
And it was that we were going tocoach people online during this
period.
So we pivoted fast being asmall, you know, single owned

(36:24):
gym.
I was able to do whatever Iwanted in a span of a day or
two.
I pivoted our gym to acompletely online business and I
set it up to where we were goingto be coaching our people from
home.
So we lent out equipment.
We had people come in and grabdumbbells, kettlebells,
barbells, rowers, bikes.

(36:45):
We sent them all home with theequipment.
And all of a sudden, I, myfiance at the time, my other
coach, we were online coaches.
And it allowed us, the systemallowed us to keep people's
memberships going.
So we didn't pause anybody'smembership.
Now I say that we did pause afew that insisted, but for the
most part, people were happy tosupport the gym and stay on

(37:08):
board.
And we kept their membershipsgoing for this six, eight, nine
week period.
And we just coached them online.
We wrote programming.
We had online workouts.
I ran Zoom workouts during thetime.
We had coaches checking in with,with each member.
You know, I had a list of somethat I was assigned and she was
assigned and the other coachwere assigned.

(37:30):
And so it braids the gap when wewere able to get through that
period with, I was able to keeppaying my coaches.
First of all, I was able to keepmembership numbers up during the
time and people were able tostill make some progress in the
on their fitness goals, evenwhile being at home until we
were able to get back into thegym in June of that year.

(37:50):
Now, unfortunately, myrelationship didn't survive that
period because that's wherethings ended.
We ended up splitting up in Mayof 2020 and it was kind of a
casualty of COVID, you couldcall it, because we were home
together and things just kind ofdownslid into, you know, hey,
this isn't working.
Let's split up.
And she ended up you know,moving out during that period.

(38:14):
And, you know, that was a toughthing because we had to announce
it to our gym members.
We had to announce it to theother coaches.
And, you know, thankfully shedidn't leave the gym because
that probably would havetriggered an even more Probably
would have triggered even moreloss at the time.
She stayed on and stayedcoaching.
But as you know from your story,that created a whole other
dynamic to have to deal with,with her coaching at the gym and

(38:36):
us no longer being together andhaving that history.

SPEAKER_00 (38:38):
Yeah, I mean, we keep running into some parallels
here that I didn't know.
So it's interesting to see.
I'm not alone, certainly in thisstory at all.

SPEAKER_01 (38:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that summer, that was atough summer for me.
It was a really dark June, July,August of 2020.
I was in a pretty dark spot.
I had gone from being engaged,thinking I had my life planned
out in front of me to beingalone.
And I remember that summer, thatfall is when I started to get

(39:09):
into bourbon or whiskey.
And, you know, we had, her and Ihad been into craft beer at the,
at the time, you know, we haddone some, you know, we would go
to breweries and drink somecraft beer and that sort of
thing.
And I knew I needed to kind ofmove on from that because that
kind of held some differentmemories for me at the time.
And so I remember I wanted totry something different.

(39:30):
And this is where, you know, wecall it that coping mechanism
of, of, you know, kind ofdrowning your, and I know some
people are going to relate tothis because they've, they've
had that experience with alcoholwhere you're using it as a
coping mechanism.
but remember I was trying to dosomething different and I wasn't
a whiskey drinker at the time.
And I don't, you've never reallygotten into it, but it's, it's a

(39:51):
very acquired taste.
It's not something you can justsay, Hey, I'm going to drink
whiskey now.
And it's, you know, it's

SPEAKER_00 (39:57):
just nasty.
It's definitely funny.
You'd say it like that becausefor those of you that don't
know, I, I was raised notdrinking at all.
And, um, By the time I got to anage where I was, you know, able
to make that decision formyself, I just didn't get it.
And, you know, the smell of it,the taste of it was, you know, I
mean, of course, you know,people would try and give me a
little taste of something justto say, yeah, you'll love it.

(40:18):
And to me, you know, it smelledand tasted like gasoline.
So I just never really got intoit.
And I still don't.
I've never drunk.
So I just don't get it.
And so, you know, you're right.
I mean, my introduction tohaving a sip to taste it was
Moonshine back in Virginia, youknow, back in 1998.
And I'm like, I don't get it.
And so I'm interested to hearHow you went from where you were

(40:38):
to acquiring a taste forsomething that's obviously,
that's pretty strong stuff.

SPEAKER_01 (40:43):
Yeah, I'll never forget.
I went out and bought a bottleof Jim Beam vanilla.
And so what that is, is it'sregular Jim Beam, which is kind
of a harsh, you know, a bourbon,kind of a bottom shelf bourbon
that you would mix with a lot ofthings.
But it was infused with vanilla.
So it had a little bit sweeter.
It's probably sugary, had asweeter flavor to it.
And I would keep that bottle ofJim Beam vanilla in my freezer

(41:05):
and I would go back to it everyother night or so.
And I would have a little pourof it and just get the taste
buds acclimated.
And it ended up being somethingI ended up enjoying.
And it was a lower proof.
It wasn't a high alcoholpercentage bourbon.
And so that ended up being,we'll call it my gateway into
the whiskey world.
And people who are into bourbonwill kind of laugh at this

(41:27):
because it's not something thatany whiskey drinker will really
claim to say is a great, greatbourbon or a great whiskey.
But it was Jim Beam Vanilla thatkind of got me into things.
And then I ended up buying, youknow, another bottle of
something different to try andkind of got acclimated to that.
I think it was Woodford Reserveor Four Roses.
These kind of these flagshipbourbons.

(41:47):
And so I would take little sipsand I ended up creating this
little bar on my counter thereat my house in Roanoke.
I have ended up having like fiveor six bottles on there.
kind of started taking littlesips and in the beginning it was
kind of harmless because it wasjust a nice little taste and I
could pick out people pick outdifferent flavors with the
bourbons there's a whole flavorwheel of different things you

(42:10):
can choose from or get from abourbon when you drink it
whether it's you know chocolatenotes or wood notes or baking
spices or fruit and each one isa little bit different based on
the way it rests in the barrelthat you know because bourbon is
aged in a wooden barrel and atthis point the bourbon boom
started to hit and Becauseeverybody was off work, people

(42:31):
started chasing differentbottles, and I kind of fell into
the chase of it.
I was running around town, goingto different ABC liquor stores,
standing in line with otherpeople, and they were waiting on
the delivery trucks to come into grab the rare allocated
bourbon bottle.
Wow.
And so you'd stand in line foran hour and you'd get a bottle

(42:53):
of, say, Blanton's or a bottleof Eagle Rare at the time or
whatever it was.
So there started to become acollectability component to this
as well.
It was almost like a baseballcard, Pokemon card,
collectability, Beanie Babies.
And they were bourbon bottlesand you could actually drink
them and drink.

(43:13):
And then they actually made youfeel a certain way when you did
drink them.
So it was almost like amulti-layered hobby that I had
just picked up.
And I remember all the time I'm,you know, a top fitness athlete.
professional.
I'm still working out of time.
I'm still extremely fit in mygym and my community, but I've
got this alternate hobby runningalongside at the same time.

(43:37):
And it got to a point to where Iactually, it was June of 2021.
At this point, I had met Erica,my current wife, and we had been
dating for probably five or sixmonths at the time.
So that was great.
She was into bourbon.
She was into whiskey.
So we had shared that commonbond together to kind of taste
different things.
and have little tasting nightsand that sort of thing.

(43:59):
And I ended up in that June of21, I started a bourbon club in
Roanoke.
I realized Roanoke didn't haveany bourbon groups or bourbon
clubs.
There was no community around itthat I knew of.
So I started it.
I called it Roanoke Bourbon onFacebook.
And I started this club fromscratch.
And it's still going today.

(44:19):
It has 1,500 members in it.
And we ended up being a bourboncommunity and we ended up doing
some cool things with it.
We did barrel picks where wewould go to different
distilleries and pick differentbarrels and get them bottled and
shipped to And so the memberswere able to try the whiskey

(44:39):
that we had picked out and buybottles of it and that sort of
thing.
And it became kind of built acommunity around whiskey.
But it was again, it was alsorunning parallel to my fitness
life.
So I had people coming in andout of my gym, you know, picking
up bottles of whiskey that thatwe had set aside, you know, for
different things.
And I was trading bottles andbuying and selling bottles from

(45:02):
different people.
And it was this whole alternatehobby.
that had evolved and at the youknow at the same time you know i
was starting to consume more andmore whiskey because you get
acclimated to it your taste budsget acclimated and you uh you
just end up you know a littlesip turns into a bigger sip and
your tolerance grows and you'reable to drink more and more and

(45:25):
so it started to go kind of downa dangerous path right

SPEAKER_00 (45:28):
yeah and i i I put this in the same category as any
addiction, right?
That's how the enemy, somepeople say the devil, but they
get pulled into something justto...
inch at a time.
So walk me through what happenedthere because I don't know any
of this.

SPEAKER_01 (45:46):
Yeah.
I mean, it got to a point wherewe were consuming a lot of
alcohol.
In my house, I had built afour-level shelf along the
dining room wall.
I built it myself.
I got these boards from Lowe'sand I got the black piping off
Amazon and I built this like onthe wall shelf that held

(46:08):
hundreds of bottles.
And so on my, in my living room,you walk in and you look and
I've got these four shelves andI've got like 200 bottles lining
the shelves.
A lot of them were open, youknow, you're, and we're tasting
different things.
And so it became a, it became atough thing each, um, each
evening, really.

(46:28):
I've got these 200 bottlesstaring me in the face and, you
know, it got to a point where Iwas drinking, uh, pretty much
each evening, each, almost everyevening.
And it got tough because I gotinto this weird, I've got this
personality, as you can probablytell, I've got like this driven
personality and also kind of anaddicting personality.

(46:51):
When I get into something, Ireally get into it.
And so at this point I wasreally into whiskey and, you
know, I found myself drinkingeach evening, which, you know,
that was tough.
It took a toll on my health and,you know, I had a lot of
mornings where I didn't feel mybest, and I was having to go
into the gym and train peopleand try to work out myself.
A lot of times when you drink,you lose your inhibitions to

(47:18):
eat, and so you eat.
you overeat and you can even getin some binge eating patterns of
eating too much food.
And so I had a lot of that goingon where I was overeating and
over drinking at the time.
And so it was kind of a tough,that 21 to 22 period ended up
being kind of tough on me.

SPEAKER_00 (47:38):
So we're in 25 now, and you already mentioned that
you're at the time, fiance, nowyour wife was obviously in the
same boat.
So what from 23 now what give methose last two year snapshots of
where are we at because i youknow i don't know and you know
the audience i know he's waitingto hear do we still have 200
bottles on the wall where are weat are we you know

SPEAKER_01 (48:00):
yeah no i got to a point to where you know she she
kind of pulled back and said,Hey, this is, this is too much.
You know, she even looked at meone night and was like, you
can't, we can't be doing this,you know, every night and that
sort of thing.
And I, of course I kind of gavesome pushback on that.
And so that's where our pathsstarted to diverge as there
started to be a little bit of,um, a wedge driven in us between

(48:24):
alcohol.
And there were some, there weresome dark moments in there.
There were some rough times.
I had some rough nights and, andthat created a lot of issues in
our relationship.
So all of a sudden, somethingthat had in my mind bonded us,
because remember we started ourrelationship with whiskey and
bourbon.
That was kind of a point thatbrought us together in the

(48:45):
beginning.
And now at this point in 23, 24,Almost this wedge had been
driven in between us over it inthat it was a sore topic.
I would feel bad when I poured adrink or feel bad when I had a
night of drinking.
And I can't imagine what it waslike for her to watch me go

(49:08):
through that because she couldsee it from her lens.
And the things we had beenthrough, there were some tough,
tough times that we had to getthrough.
And she was living it.
On her side of things, lookingin and, um, you know, I think, I
think it was tough on just astough on her as it was me going
through it.
But there was a time where, youknow, after a rough night, I

(49:30):
went through it and we had atalk and, you know, it was, it
got to a point of a talk wherelike, Hey, you're going to lose
this relationship.
We're going to, we're going to,it's not going to work out if
you continue down this path.
And I remember I went home thatday and I took all the bottles
off the wall and put them alldownstairs in the basement out
of sight.

(49:50):
And we turned those shelvesinto, you know, plants and
different decorations and thingslike that, like a normal home
would have, right?
And the bottles stayeddownstairs.
You know, unfortunately, thatdidn't really stop the drinking.
I would just make more tripsdownstairs at this point.
And so...

(50:20):
one bottle up at a time and umyou know the the reality kind of
remained in the the the wedgenow this we had this alcohol
wedge built built up between usand you know we at the time we
started seeing a counselor andyou know had had some some
knockdown drag outs about it anduh It was tough because in her

(50:46):
mind, I was choosing alcoholover our relationship and
choosing alcohol over her.
In my mind, I didn't see it thatway.
So I was in a lot of denial.
And again, you can imagine theriff that that created in the
relationship.
Wow.
Yeah.

(51:22):
It wasn't the type of addictionthat I thought it would be.
It wasn't like I was shiveringand having the shakes and having
to...
Of course, I wasn't out drinkingin the middle of the day.
I didn't let my life slip out ofmy hands in terms of my
business.
My relationship was hanging on.
But it was an addiction kind ofin my head with the dopamine

(51:44):
hit.
Having to grab that dopamine hitof taking a drink and having a
drink.
And again, it...
the way your tolerance gets, youget farther and farther down the
line where you have to drinkmore and more to get that same
dopamine hit.
And so I was no longer gettingthat from working out.
I no longer, it's almost likethe alcohol had replaced that

(52:04):
dopamine hit to where I wasfalling less and less in love
with the idea of working out andthe passion that I had there.
And the passion was more on thebourbon, the alcohol side of
things.
And, you know, that created morestrife in not only my world, but
also in our world, ourrelationship.

SPEAKER_00 (52:23):
So this is 24, and I mean, we're not far removed from
that.
And we know from previousepisodes, you guys were
expecting a baby boy here inJuly, and we know that you've
just moved and sold everything.
So kind of walk me through,because at this point, we've got
this picture of you, at least Ido, still in the trenches of
going up and down the stairs,like you said, all you've done

(52:45):
is just relocated it to adifferent place in the house.
And so...
At what point did that fork inthe road or is the fork in the
road still to come?
Like, where are we at?

SPEAKER_01 (52:54):
Yeah, we had a...
It was April of 24.
We had another kind of roughnight, rough blow up.
And, you know, some thingshappened to where she was
checked out.
In her mind, she was gone.

SPEAKER_00 (53:09):
Now, were you married at that point?

SPEAKER_01 (53:10):
At this point, we were married because we got
married in August of 23.
So, by...

SPEAKER_00 (53:16):
You said June or no, April?
It

SPEAKER_01 (53:17):
was April of 24.
The word divorce was on thetable and it was a real thing.
At that point, it broke me.
It literally broke me in that Ipromised to not drink anymore.
And so I started this basicallya dry spell from April of 24.

(53:38):
I remember we're getting readyto move.
Um, and a couple months down toFlorida, you know, thankfully we
were able to kind of come toterms.
Part of it was the alcoholthing, but the other part of it
was, um, it's this weirdestthing.
Cause I was getting ready tosell my house at the time.
And I remember it vividly that,you know, she was, she was

(54:02):
checked out.
And, you know, she was alreadylooking at different apartments
down in Florida.
She was going to go on her own,you know, and I was like, well,
what am I going to do?
And we were and I put my houseon the market.
I was getting ready to sell myhouse and leave Roanoke

SPEAKER_00 (54:21):
and sold the gym at that point.

SPEAKER_01 (54:23):
The gym was on the blocks, meaning that the deal
wasn't done yet, but it was inthe talks, in the works.
So I literally was selling mygym and had my house listed on
the market the day prior.
And your wife is moving toFlorida to start a life without
you.
Or she was saying, you can comedown there if you want, but just

(54:43):
to get a new start, but it's notwith me.
Wow.
We were getting ready to showthe house.
We had the one showing.
And so we had to pile the dogsin the car and go for a drive
while the house was being shown.
So you imagine three dogs in theback and us driving.
And we were driving.

(55:04):
We decided to drive to the gymfor some reason.
And we were going through thisintersection.
And this intersection that Ihad, somebody had hit me head on
in this intersection prior, acouple of years prior.
They had ran a light and hit me.
And we were sitting at thisintersection, and I think about
it every time I go through thatintersection.
You know, I think about thataccident.

(55:24):
And we're sitting there, and thelight turns green, and I start
to go, and I hear her yelling.
And I look to my right, andthere's this car just coming
straight for us.
And this car runs this red lightand just plows into the
passenger side wheel, basically.
So it's not the passenger sidedoor, right?

(55:44):
And thankfully, so it's notthat, and it's not the other
door.
It's kind of like the frontfender passenger side, same
intersection, like literally thesame intersection.
This car hits us and, you know,we've got the dogs in the car.
She's screaming.
I guess this lady had to just belooking at her phone and just

(56:04):
ran straight through the redlight.
And, um, we, we, Pull the caroff to the side, and I'm just
distraught at this point justbecause I'm like, you've got to
be kidding me.
I'd already been through theaccident before, and I knew how
long.
Post-COVID, the time it takes tofix vehicles is much, much

(56:26):
longer than it used to bebecause of parts and all that.
So I know what I'm about to gothrough.
I've got this relationshipthat's in shambles.
But I

SPEAKER_00 (56:35):
tell that's okay in this.
Yeah.
You guys got out of the vehicle.

SPEAKER_01 (56:39):
She had a little bit of whiplash.
Her neck was a little bit stiff.
So, you know, we ended updriving the car home.
We shouldn't have driven ithome.
It wasn't though.
Something was wrong with theaxle and the wheel.

SPEAKER_02 (56:49):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (56:50):
But we drove it home.
put the dogs up, got her car,and we drove to the emergency
room.
And we spent the night in theemergency room while she got
checked out.
I was feeling fine, but her neckwas a little stiff.
And so we spent the nighttogether sitting in the waiting
room of the emergency room.
And I tell that story because itwas kind of like the turning

(57:10):
point that brought us backtogether.
Because remember, we were kindof done at this point in a way,
at least emotionally.

SPEAKER_02 (57:17):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (57:19):
And this night that we spent, this accident, this
day, this thing, it kind of justall happened and brought us back
together emotionally in a waywhere we had to lean on each
other.
We were forced to lean on eachother.
And over the next couple ofdays, we essentially reconciled
and decided that we were goingto give it another go.
And that, you know, remember,I'm still not drinking at this

(57:41):
point.
This is, you know, the dryspell.
But it kind of brought us backtogether and gave us a new
start, at least a new look onour relationship and now it was
okay we're doing this togetheragain

SPEAKER_00 (57:53):
yeah

SPEAKER_01 (57:54):
And it was just insane that that happened in the
same intersection as theprevious accident.
And at that time, at thattiming, sure enough, the housing
or the showing on our house wentthrough.
They put in an offerimmediately.
I sold the house that day.
So it was all done at thatpoint.

(58:14):
And we didn't want to go onanother car ride to show our
house.
So we just accepted the offerand said, be done with it.
But- That was a wild April.
That was April of 24.
And we're getting ready to movein June.

SPEAKER_00 (58:27):
Yeah, I mean, we're only talking 12 months ago now.
And so just to hear that there'sa, you know, that's a divine
appointment, right?
It's, you know, that person was,you know, unfortunately, whoever
they were, I don't know.
But that moment to me, I look atthat and it's like they were
always going to come plowingthrough and take you guys out.

SPEAKER_01 (58:49):
Yeah.

UNKNOWN (58:49):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (58:50):
And, you know, it's talking about this is tough for
me because there's a lot ofembarrassment.
There's a lot of shame involvedin not only the alcohol thing,
but the relationship thing.
I've always pride myself in inputting on a stoic face and and
showing people that things areOK with my life and going well.
But both of those things kind ofspeak to the struggles that I
was going through at the timethat we were going through and

(59:12):
the things that I put herthrough to lead us to this
point.
And nobody knows that at thispoint, you know, until now.

SPEAKER_00 (59:19):
Well, I don't know it.
Not that I deserve to know it,but I can't imagine the people
that have been with you for thelast 12, 13 years and know you
well are going to probably hearthat and take a second.

SPEAKER_01 (59:31):
Yeah, because it's on the outside.
I could put on a face every dayat the gym.
I can through a text message orthrough a phone call or through
a surface interaction.
You would never guess that anyof this is going on.

SPEAKER_00 (59:43):
No, my heart breaks.
I'm over here trying to keepback the emotion of hearing
about the car accident.
Because to me, that's just thatmoment where there's another
power at play.
And I say the almighty creatorjust allowed someone to have a
bad day and take you guys out.
Because outside of that, thatsliding door kind of moment

(01:00:03):
where if you don't get hit andgo down that path of
reconciliation, then youprobably spiral.

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:10):
Yeah, I don't know what would have happened if we
had just gone for that drive andgotten home like everything's
normal.
I don't know.
I don't know how things would bedifferent, you know, in terms of
I think we would have still goneon that path.
And, you know, she was dead seton starting a new life and
leaving.
And, you know, I don't blame herfor that.
But that singular moment kind ofchanged everything with the

(01:00:33):
accident.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:34):
Yeah.
So, I mean, April rolls around.
You had surgery.
I know that you had surgery.
Was it that following September?

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:40):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we got down to, you know, wegot down to Jacksonville.
Where we are now.
And, you know, I still wasn'tdrinking.
So it ended up being like a, youknow, I think I ended up going
about three months withouthaving any drinks at all.
And, you know, we did end upintroducing it back in around
that August, September timeframeand ended up having surgery on

(01:01:05):
my neck.
Hurt myself.
You know, people can see thescar on video.
Yeah, absolutely.

(01:01:32):
That was definitely a fall fromthe top because I went from
being one of the fittest peopleprobably in the city of Roanoke
at someone who was just sittingat home and I just had a neck
surgery there in September andwasn't doing anything, was just
sitting.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:50):
Yeah, because you were competing at that point,
weren't you?
I

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:53):
was competing.
Yeah, I was enteringcompetitions by myself or with
others and we were winning.
I would win competitions.
These are local kind of Roanoke,Lynchburg area competitions.
And we were lifting a lot ofweight and doing some really
intense exercises.
And again, that had kind of Thatwas my passion and my drive.

(01:02:19):
It kind of led me to that pointall the way back from when we
started the gym.
And now I'm sitting here inFlorida and I've got no, my
alcohol's gone.
So that dopamine kick is gone.
I've got no fitness to do.
I'm sitting here and it was justa tough time.
And I look back on now and I'mstill not what I would call out

(01:02:39):
of the woods, but I'm in abetter spot than I was, let's
say six months ago.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:45):
Yeah, because I'm picturing it now where it's kind
of September, October of justlast year now.
And from all the stories thatwe've already shared, the people
are looking at it going, right,so this guy's just sort of
sitting around trying to recoverin a place where he's got no
friends, he's got no job, he'sgot no purpose.
His wife's off pursuing hercareer as a doctor, right?
And so I could see why now thebrain is looking for something.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:09):
Yeah, and I think that's where you see a lot of
that emptiness in me.
You know, when you look at meand I kind of even feel it and I
see it in my own face of thereis kind of like a shell.
You know, there's there'snothing there's no gym anymore.
There's no purpose in terms of abusiness to, you know, to to
wake up to and and and.

(01:03:29):
And then the alcohol thing,there's been so much trauma
involved with that, you know,that I have trouble finding joy
in that.
And I am still having drinks nowto this point.
I don't want people tomisconstrue, misunderstand.
You know, I've got to a pointwhere I'm able to have a handle
on things and not go overboard.
But, you know, it's hard toenjoy it when I pour a drink now

(01:03:53):
and I feel bad.
It's just emotionally, there's alot of scarring there to where
it doesn't have that same joyand it's not that same hobby
that it once was.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:03):
And so fast forward now to the connection of you and
I, and now I can actually sortof see the breadcrumbs here.
And for a lot of people outthere that have watched the
first few episodes, you'll seethat this is not a podcast of...
Hey, you know, years ago, thisis what we went through and this

(01:04:26):
is what we did to get out of it.
You know, I have obviously beenthrough a lot recently that just
made me feel like.
And I shared this early on whereI felt that voice say, this is
your last chance.
And so people might think, whatdoes he mean by that?
Last chance for what?
There's always forgiveness.
There's always another chance.
And I need to sort of speak tothat with you.

(01:04:48):
It's not that there's a lastchance that you can never
achieve anything again.
But for me, I felt like thisjourney that was inspired to me
10 years ago has to be told.
And I just felt like theopportunity was not going to
come around again.
To elaborate on why I said,understood, like, this is it.
I have to do this now.
I've got to do it while I'm inthe trenches.

(01:05:08):
It doesn't make sense for me towait for my life to be in order
before I start sharing it.
And for some reason, it seemslike you're actually in a pretty
challenging place right nowyourself.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, emotionally, I would sayphysically, you know, I'm in a
physically right now.
I'm in a pretty great spot.
I've got a loving wife, gotthree beautiful dogs, got a baby
on the way.
We're secure in our marriage andin our finances.
And I'm working part-time at TPCSawgrass, like we've talked

(01:05:39):
about.
But emotionally, it's thathollow shell of a feeling that
you can kind of see and probablyhear in my voice a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:50):
Well, I've seen you pumped about stuff.
And I know when I've been pumpedabout stuff in the past where
I've had a passion when I wasrunning programs and functions
for my gym and the community youknow gets behind you and you
know I remember going through aperiod of my life where I'd just
wake up ready to take on theworld nothing could stop me and
you do it on no sleep and you'restill exercising like a machine
and then something derails youand all of a sudden you know

(01:06:13):
here we are you know years laterand a lot of it's self-inflicted
you know I'm not going to sithere and lie and tell everybody
that you know woe is me it's alot of it's self-inflicted
that's why I felt like mysituation came to the point
where it's like you've got to doit now stop waiting stop waiting
for you to be at the other sideI need you to track it while
you're in it and I've wonderedso often when we reconnected
recently you know why are youthe right guy for the other side

(01:06:35):
of you know what was given to me10 years ago and after hearing
today's testimony now I reallyget it I felt that you're the
right person but now I reallyunderstand why because you're
still in it and you've beenvulnerable enough to share it
that that area of that emotionalshell of a man is still waiting
to be filled with something andI you know I've obviously been
praying for you and for ourjourney here to that this can

(01:06:56):
fill that void.
We track it and there's a lot ofpeople out there that might go,
okay, I get it.
These guys are in it, butthey're still plowing through,
right?
I mean, we're still getting onwith it.

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:07):
Yeah, and honestly, it's tough, man.
I literally almost canceled onyou today.
You know, that's that's how howin it I am, is that my mind to
say, no, I don't want to talkabout this today.
I don't want to I don't want togo there.
Let's just put it aside.
And, you know, I had to therewas a lot of talk, self-talk to
just get myself on the screen oron this this audio to to be here

(01:07:31):
with you today.
I'm glad I did because we wereable to have a good conversation
and kind of get some things outthere.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:37):
Well, I know that we talk about how long we want
these podcasts to be, and I'mlooking at the time here, and I
just feel like it's flown.
I'm like, are you kidding me?
It's been over an hour and only15 minutes, but I'm just blown
away.
You built it up so nicely, notthat you were making us hang on
there, but to hear about how itculminated and where we're at
right now, and to the very lastmoment, you just said, you

(01:08:01):
nearly canceled on me.
I have to be honest with you andsay that, yeah, when I was about
to share my last decade, thevoices...
say don't share that it's gonnahave some repercussions there's
gonna be some fallout there'sgonna be some issues and I just
have to I have to trust I haveto believe that the almighty has
given us this testimony thatwe're both actually you know
right now face down on thecanvas just getting a big old

(01:08:23):
beat down but yet you're on thecamera you know here we are
we're gonna release this andhopefully there's some people
out there that just getsomething we may never hear
about it but you know I'mmotivated by your testimony and
um I'm so thankful that youshared it.
I know I kind of pushed you alittle bit without knowing the
story.
I didn't know the story.

(01:08:43):
For those of you out there, Idid not know the story when we
got together.
I did not want to know.
I wanted to hear it for thefirst time with everybody else.
But I knew something was reallychallenging you and I still know
that that you know where youwant to be.
And I see a really bright futurefor you and for me and for this.
I just know it.

(01:09:03):
There's going to be someone outthere that we really hope
because of that.
So thanks for sharing that.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:09):
Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:09):
man.
There's going to be a lot ofdeep breathing after we close
this one out that you're goingto walk away and maybe take a
nap.
I know the feeling.

SPEAKER_01 (01:09:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a lot.
And they said one of those, oneof those things where, like you
said, I think there's going tobe some people out there that,
that hear this and that neededto hear it.
And there's, you know, like we,we've got people that know us
from different eras of our lifeand we just covered, you and I
both just covered, you know, asolid 11, 12 year period that,
um, that are going to, going tohit a lot of people.
And, and, um, like I hope, Ihope we hear for some people on

(01:09:41):
this.
So, you know, if you're outthere and you're listening and
you want to drop us a message,you know, like I said, in the
beginning, you can reach usthrough Instagram direct
message.
It's at strength to overcome.
And, uh, you can always send anemail info dot strength to
overcome at gmail.com to reachout.
And like I said, we're notexperts, not, we're not trained
therapists by any means.

(01:10:02):
We're just two guys who aregoing through it.
And, um, If you need an ear andyou need a hand, don't hesitate
to reach out.

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:11):
Yeah, and that kind of leads into my favorite
sign-off and just remindeverybody to stay strong because
doing it together is usually howpeople have made it through.
So stay strong and just rememberthat you are not alone.
Thanks, guys.
We'll catch you next Friday,okay?

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Gyms, Alcohol, and Marriage - Ryan's Story

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Gyms, Alcohol, and Marriage - Ryan's Story